Gov. DeSantis in Palm Beach to sign bill to meant to release Jeffrey Epstein documents

Gov. Ron DeSantis will visit Palm Beach today to sign a bill that will release records from a 2006 Jeffrey Epstein grand jury that resulted in only one criminal charge widely criticized as too lenient.

The governor will be at the Palm Beach Police Department at 10 a.m., a police spokesman confirmed. According to Politico, DeSantis while there will hold a press conference to sign the legislation, CS/HB 117, which was presented to him Wednesday.

With media attendance expected, the area around the police department at 345 S. County Road just north of Worth Avenue may experience some congestion.

"All files related to Jeffrey Epstein's criminal activity should be made public," DeSantis said on X, formerly Twitter, as he pledged to sign the bill into law after its final passage in the Senate recently.

Disgraced billionaire financier Epstein pleaded guilty in 2008 to two felony charges of soliciting prostitution and procuring a minor for prostitution. He received a plea deal that was criticized for being lenient.

Many of the allegations had centered around Epstein's Palm Beach home at 358 El Brillo Way, which he bought in 1990. Underage girls from Palm Beach County told investigators they were brought to Epstein's mansion in Palm Beach and homes in New York, New Mexico and the U.S. Virgin Islands for sexual encounters.

In 2019, under renewed pressure to examine the case spurred by a Miami Herald investigation, officials charged Epstein with sex trafficking of minors and conspiracy. Before he could go to trial, he killed himself on Aug. 10, 2019, while in federal custody in New York.

A 2019 Palm Beach Post investigation found that then-Palm Beach County State Attorney Barry Krischer, who was the prosecutor in the first criminal case against Epstein, sunk his own prosecution before a 2006 grand jury.

The Post sued to uncover documentation from that grand jury, and last year an appeals court ordered the trial court judge to review and release the grand jury's transcripts.

The bill DeSantis will sign Thursday will not be needed once a judge in that Palm Beach Post lawsuit follows the appeals court's order, which was issued nine months ago.

The bill was sponsored by Boca Raton lawmakers Sen. Tina Polsky and Rep. Peggy Gossett-Seidman. Palm Beach County Clerk & Comptroller Joseph Abruzzo proposed the bill and was on the Senate floor in Tallahassee when the legislation passed.

"This has been my goal from the beginning, to find a way for the grand jury records to be released so Jeffrey Epstein’s victims and our community can get the answers they deserve,” Abruzzo said in a news release.

Allegations against Epstein were first brought to the Palm Beach Police Department when a concerned stepmother called the law-enforcement agency in 2005 to say her 14-year-old stepdaughter had been molested by a wealthy man.

In a letter to the Palm Beach Daily News in 2021, former Palm Beach police Chief Michael Reiter, who led the department at the time, said the department "recognized the importance of stopping Jeffrey Epstein and bringing him to justice."

The 2019 Palm Beach Post investigation found that Krischer, the state attorney who was the first to prosecute Epstein for sex crimes, approached the case as though the girls who accused Epstein were prostitutes, instead of viewing them as victims of sexual assault.

Reiter and Joseph Recarey, the detective who led the case, were frustrated by Krischer's decisions and went to the FBI, as well as urged Krischer to step down.

"The department never bent to the power and influence brought to bear against us," Reiter wrote. "Unfortunately, of the many other agencies involved, only the FBI acted in a similar way."

Recarey died in 2018, before Epstein was arrested on federal charges. Recarey said that during the investigation, nearly two dozen girls and young women provided nearly identical information about their encounters with Epstein, including information about how he flaunted his wealth to exploit them, The Palm Beach Post reported in a 2019 investigation.

Recarey worked to build the case against Epstein, with the detective finding what would become dozens of teens who said they had been targeted by the billionaire.

As part of the investigation, Palm Beach police arranged for Epstein's trash to be set aside by garbage collectors, so detectives could sift through it.

When local prosecutors led by Krischer tried to offer Epstein a plea deal that would not involve time behind bars, Recarey fought back.

This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Daily News: Jeffrey Epstein documents: DeSantis to sign bill in Palm Beach